Published: 2022-08-20

The ‘leges libitinariae’ and legal regulations for Roman funeral rites

Marek Kuryłowicz
Zeszyty Prawnicze
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2022.22.2.07

Abstract

Originally, the legal grounds for Roman funeral rites were formulated by religious provisions, royal laws (leges regiae) and the Twelve Tables. Another important set of practices were ancestral customs (mores maiorum), as well as the praetorian edicts and imperial constitutions and laws which came in force later (D. 11,7; D. 11,8; D. 47,12; C. 3,44). Tomb inscriptions were important as well, because they were regarded as the legal acts creating the rights (leges datae) of the tomb’s founder and the persons mentioned in the inscription. Te Leges Libitinariae hold a special position. The name is derived from Libitina, the Roman goddess associated with funerals. Historically, the first of these laws on record is lex Lucerina, dated to 314-250 BC, but the best known are lex Puteolana Libitinaria and lex Cumana Libitinaria, which are dated to the reign of Augustus. They contain local regulations on undertakers’ services and the execution of death sentences. They also contain orders for the disposal of corpses abandoned in public places. Usually, the magistrates responsible for seeing to the observation of provisions relating to burials were the aediles. This research shows that the legal regulations governing funerals were well established in the city of Rome and the municipalities already by the early Republic.

Keywords:

Roman law; funeral order; legal regulation.

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Kuryłowicz, M. (2022). The ‘leges libitinariae’ and legal regulations for Roman funeral rites. Zeszyty Prawnicze, 22(2), 121–140. https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2022.22.2.07

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